A social media analysis of 6 european leaders. Focus on the italian PM Matteo Renzi. © DOING - Prime "Social" Ministers, March 2016

1. Rome,
March 2016
PRIME “SOCIAL” MINISTERS
A SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYSIS OF 6 EUROPEAN LEADERS
MATTEO RENZI FOCUS

2. What is a social media analysis?
• The collection and analysis of datas coming from the official social media profiles of the politicians considered.
Subjects of analysis
• Profiles considered: Facebook, Twitter and Youtube (benchmark only) official profiles of 6 european politicians: Matteo Renzi,
Alexis Tsipras (for twitter @tsipras_eu had been considered among the two profiles), Angela Merkel, Mariano Rajoy, François
Hollande, David Cameron.
• Popularity: analysis of fan/follower base: trend evolution, days with main growth, demographics and geolocalisation
characteristics and fanbase interests;
• Content Analysis: qualitative and quantitative analysis of the posting made by the politicians;
• Engagement: analysis of the interactions received by the politician’s posts/accounts;
• Twitter network: connections network around the leaders’ twitter profiles;
• Reach Twitter: potential reach of the twitter profiles.
• Online Reputation Monitoring: a quali-quantitative analysis on the conversations on the 6 politicians outside their official social
media profiles.
Period taken into consideration.
• January - December 2015
INTRODUCTION
2

3. The Twitter and Facebook profiles of the political leaders have been analysed mainly focusing on three different perspectives.
Popularity: the size of the fan/follower base had been measured on the the first day of each month from January to December 2015.
Two different focuses have then been analyzed on social media channels: the interests of the most active Facebook fans are shown in
a map of the other pages they have been active on whereas Twitter followers gave us insights on demographic data (sex ratio
calculated on a 5k sample for each profile) and on geolocalisation of the users that did interact with the political leader in the month
of January 2016.
Analysis of the entirety of content published online by political leaders provides qualitative and quantitative insights on their social
media behavior. Besides the mere quantitative metrics, the different posting styles, main topics dealt with and different kind of posts
have been analyzed.
Engagement: to retrieve data on how engaging the contents published by political leaders are and compare it in spite of the fan/
follower bases size differences, the index that has been chosen is the engagement rate per 1000 fans/followers. On Facebook the
engagement is calculated from Likes, Comments and Shares, whereas on Twitter it’s the Retweets, Replies and Likes that have been
included. Furthermore, the Twitter Reach has been calculated to figure how many users each political leaders can actually reach with
their tweets (the reach has been analyzed on a week-long time sample).
METHODOLOGY
3

4. Furthermore, a social network connections analysis on the politicians’ twitter handles, has been carried out taking into
consideration the total number of mentions received by every profile during 2015 in the five languages: italian, english, spanish,
german, french.*
An additional analysis of this kind has been made on every politician considering the terrorism-related mentions received: that
means tweets both containing a mention to the leader (#merkel for Angela Merkel that doesn’t have an official twitter profile) and
almost one terrorism-related keyword in the five language of analysis (terrorismo, terrorism, terrorisme, terrorismus…).
The analysis is enriched by a focus on the leaders’ online reputation (results outside the social media owned profiles) that, along with
a quantitative/trend analysis on the online conversations, presents a qualitative part on the most discussed topics and on the
sentiment of every politician on the whole 2015 year as a result of a manual analysis of over 10.000 in topic tweets.
Among the different tools used to carry out the analysis for the different “chapters”: Radian6, Talkwalker, SocialBakers,
FanpageKarma, Gephi…
METHODOLOGY/2
4
*sample: 10.000 contents per every week ordering the users per follower number

5. 2015 INTERNATIONAL KEY EVENTS
5
January February March April May June July August September October
7th:
Charlie
Hebdo
Attack
18th:
Bardo
National
Museum
Attack
2nd:
Garissa
University
Attack
7th:
General
Elections
14th:
Local
Elections
5th:
Grexit
Referendum
14th:
Agreement
for a Third
Greek
Bailout
3rd:
Syrian Child
Aylan
Drowns
31st:
Russian
Plane Crash
in Sina
November December
13th:
Paris Terror
Attacks
20th:
General
Elections
24th:
German
wings
Plane
Crash
25th:
Earthquake
19th:
Mediter-
ranean
Migrant
Shipwreck
23rd:
Special EU
Council on
Migrant
Crisis
31st:
Local
Elections
26th:
Sousse
Attack
12th:
Agreement
at EU
Summit on
Greece Debt
14th:
Iran
Nuclear
Deal
23rd:
Special
EU Council
on Immigration
18th:
Volkswagen
Emissions
Scandal
24th:
Mecca Haji’s
Stampede
24th:
Russian
Warplane
Shot down
by Turkish
Army
12th:
Climate
Change
Agreement
at COP21
Conference
28th:
EU
Referendum
Act
Introduced in
the House of
Commons
28th:
EU
Referendum
Act
Introduced in
the House of
Commons
20th:
General
Elections

6. 6
POPULARITY

7. FACEBOOK ANALYSIS
POPULARITY
7

8. MATTEO RENZI - POPULARITY
8
+235,82
Average Change of Fans per Day
+86.073
Total Change of fans
in the period
849.324
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
737.000
765.250
793.500
821.750
850.000
1 Jan 1 Feb 1 Mar 1 Apr 1 May 1 Jun 1 Jul 1 Aug 1 Sep 1 Oct 1 Nov 1 Dec 1 Jan
Fanbase on 31st of December
N. of Likers
A peak can be noticed right after the election of the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, on January 31st.

9. 9
MATTEO RENZI - DAILY MAX. GROWTH IN FANS
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
+ 5,9k
Fans change in the day
31st Jan. 2015
Image Source

10. 10
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
Strong links with PD official accounts
and politicians pages (last year we
noted more links with media and
opponent political parties)
MATTEO RENZI - FANBASE INTERESTS
The most active fans of the page are also active fans on the linked pages in the graph.

11. TWITTER ANALYSIS
POPULARITY
11

12. 12
+1.807,72
Average Change of Follower
per Day
+659.818
Total Change of follower
in the period
2.177.652
Follower on 31st of December
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
1.400.000
1.600.000
1.800.000
2.000.000
2.200.000
1 Jan 1 Feb 1 Mar 1 Apr 1 May 1 Jun 1 Jul 1 Aug 1 Sep 1 Oct 1 Nov 1 Dec 1 Jan
N. of Followers
Unlike the trend noticed on Facebook, the growth is steady and dynamic.
MATTEO RENZI - POPULARITY

13. 13
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
14th Nov. 2015
+ 6,9k
Followers change in the day
MATTEO RENZI - DAILY MAX. GROWTH IN FOLLOWERS
Image Source

14. FOLLOWERS DEMOGRAPHICS
14
MATTEO RENZI
25%
75%
Based on a 5k followers sample for each profile
Jan. -> Dec. 2015

15. MATTEO RENZI - GEOLOCALISATION
15
Geolocalisation of the followers that interacted with the official twitter profiles during January 2016
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
Outside of Italy, most part of
the followers that interacted
with Matteo Renzi's account
are located on the east coast
of the United States, in United
Kingdom and in the Benelux
area, where most of EU
agencies and bodies are
located. Followers' presence in
other European countries is
low.

16. 16
CONTENT

17. QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
CONTENT
17

18. MATTEO RENZI - PUBLISHED POSTS ON FACEBOOK
18
5,3
277
Published posts
Average published posts
per week
Status Photo LInk Video Album
53
31
34
86
73
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
50
of the total were
promoted posts
Promoted posts were mainly used for awareness on Reforms, achievements from Government and Italians around in the world (School
and Jobs Acts, US Open Final with two Italian tennis players, etc.)

19. MATTEO RENZI - PUBLISHED POSTS ON TWITTER
19
20
90
160
230
300
Lun Mar Mer Gio Ven Sab Dom
11,2
583
Published tweets
Average published tweets
per week
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
61%
23%
16%
Tweets
Retweets
Replies
N. of tweets published per day of the week

20. TOPICS AND POSTING STYLE QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
CONTENT
20

21. MATTEO RENZI - TOPICS
21
Campaigning
Current news/Comments
Economy & Taxes
Education
Other (33%)
21%
15%
13%
10%
Jobs8%
• Foreign Politics
• Terrorism
• Justice
• EU
• Climate
• Immigration
• Innovation
• Health
• Cabinet appointments
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
• Posting frequency is lower than Cameron, Tsipras
and Rajoy. Dynamic and first-person approach:
budget bill presented on Twitter;
• Irregular posting frequency, that peaks in
moments of direct interaction with citizens,
mostly about the education reform;
• Focus on institutional campaigning on
government measures, very little electoral
campaigning.

22. 0
5
10
15
20
25
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
MATTEO RENZI - MONTH BY MONTH PUBLISHED POSTS TOPICS
22
Terrorism (21%)
Current news (21%)
Campaigning (16%)
Campaigning (38,5%)
Jobs (15%)
Justice (15%)
Campaigning (21%)
Jobs (10,5%)
Education (10,5%)
Campaigning (29%)
Current news (18%)
Immigration (11%)
Campaigning (22%)
Current news (22%)
Justice (17%)
Economy (19%)
Jobs (14%)
Campaigning(14%)
Campaigning (32%)
Current news (21%)
Jobs (10%)
Foreign Politics (17%)
Current news (17%)
Campaigning (10%) Current news (25%)
Campaigning (16%)
Jobs (16%)
Campaigning (25%)
Economy (25%)
Foreign politics (21%)
0
5
10
15
20
25
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Current news (43%)
Campaigning (16%)
Economy (16%)
Campaigning (29%)
Economy (21%)
Justice (21%)
Campaigning (30%)
Foreign politics (11%)
Terrorism (11%)
Education (34%)
Campaigning (18%)
Current news (13%)
EU (17%)
Economy (17%)
Jobs (17%)
Education (33%)
Economy (15%)
Campaigning (14%)
Current news (21%)
Campaigning (15%)
Foreign politics (15%)
Campaigning (42%)
Current news (16%)
Jobs (16%)
Current news (23%)
Economy (19%)
Campaigning (14%)
Economy (35%)
Jobs (15%)
Campaigning (15%)
Terrorism (38%)
Campaigning (14%)
Justice (14%)
Campaigning (50%)
EU (14%)
Terrorism (14%)
Terrorism (30%)
Justice (15%)
Current news (15%)
Campaigning (39%)
EU (11%)
Current news (11%)
Monthly
Post %
Monthly
Post %
Regional and Local Elections:
May 31st and June 14th Most Recurring topic: Campaigning
Most Recurring topic: Campaigning
The monthly percentage is calculated on the total of the 12 months of analysis (100%).

23. MATTEO RENZI - POSTING STYLE
23
• Many pictures and albums can be found on
Italy’s Prime Minister’s Facebook page. They
mainly show the leader on field trips in a
campaigning style.
• However there are almost as many text-only
posts on Renzi’s official page, sometimes
proper essays written in first person which are
much longer than social media strategy would
suggest.
• That underlines how personal the approach of
the Italian leader to social media is.
Jan. -> Dec. 2015

24. 24
ENGAGEMENT

25. FACEBOOK ENGAGEMENT
ENGAGEMENT
25

26. MATTEO RENZI - ENGAGEMENT
26
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
Average post engagement:
5.630 Comments
7.120 Like
987 Shares
7%
41%
52%
Like
Comments
Shares
3.805.436
Total interactions
277
published posts
17,03Engagement Rate
Average tweet interactions
per 1.000 fans*
*Considering the average post interaction per 1.000 fans allows to compare pages with very different fanbase numbers.

27. MATTEO RENZI - TOP 3 POST PER ENGAGEMENT
27
Buon lavoro, Presidente Mattarella. Viva
l'Italia!
66.919Likes
31st January 2015
https://www.facebook.com/matteorenziufficiale/posts/
Comments
Shares
14.629
9.085
Una comunità nazionale vive anche di
emozioni non solo di statistiche. Grazie
Flavia, grazie Roberta #vivalitaliaviva
35.662Like
13th September 2015
https://www.facebook.com/matteorenziufficiale/posts/
Comments
Share
12.635
5.155
Insieme ai nostri fratelli francesi, contro
l'atroce attacco a Parigi e all'Europa.
41.085Likes
14th November 2015
Comments
Shares
14.471
2636
Jan. -> Dec. 2015

28. TWITTER ENGAGEMENT
ENGAGEMENT
28

29. MATTEO RENZI - ENGAGEMENT
29
Average Interactions per
tweet:
295 Retweets
336
32%
40%
28%
Retweet
Likes
Replies
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
426 Likes
616.876
Total interactions
583
published posts
Replies
0,91Engagement Rate
Average tweet interactions
per 1.000 followers*
Tot. Mentions received
3.077.867
*Considering the average post interaction per 1.000 followers allows to compare accounts with very different follower base numbers. Mentions are not
considered interactions to tweets obviously.

30. MATTEO RENZI - TOP 3 POST PER ENGAGEMENT
30
Buon lavoro, Presidente Mattarella! Viva
l'Italia
7.890RTs
31st January 2015
Likes 7.898
Replies 515
Dimanche je serais avec @fhollande a
Paris #JeSuisCharlie Non permetteremo
alla paura di cambiarci #Europa
3.177RTs
9th January 2015
Likes 2.220
Replies 153
Insieme ai nostri fratelli francesi, contro
l’atroce attacco a Parigi e all’Europa.
4.306RTs
14th November 2015
Likes 5.542
Replies 1.629
Jan. -> Dec. 2015

31. 31
TWITTER REACH

32. BENCHMARK - TWITTER REACH
32
Reach calculated during the week 21st - 28th of February 2016
Tsipras Rajoy Hollande CameronRenzi
2,3 mln
11,6 mln
260 k
2 mln
1,2 mln
9,8 mln
1,5 mln
2,5 mln
1,4 mln
5,5 mln
Followers Reach

33. 33
TWITTER NETWORKS

34. METHODOLOGY - TWITTER NETWORKS
34
Social network analysis allows us to map a twitter network starting from a list of nodes (the points visualised on the net show a
single user or hashtag) and a list of relations (any connection shown with an arrow is a mention) through the use of different
softwares that give the possibility to choose within different representation procedures (layout algorithm) in order to organize the
network and nodes distances according to various criteria.
Nodes, labels and arrows dimensions reflect the number of entry connections (mentions), and give an idea of the relevant user/
hashtag related with the analysed topic.
Sample: Every leader’s network have been realised by extracting a sample of tweets (during 2015) containing a direct mention to the
leader’s account adding the total of the tweets published by the leader. Sampling procedure extracted a max of 10.000 tweet per
week ordered by user’s followers. After the sampling procedure retweets have been excluded.

35. MATTEO RENZI - TWITTER NETWORK
35
Source: Twitter
Language: Italian, English, German, Spanish, French
Keyword: @matteorenzi
Period: January - December 2015
Number of tweets: 3.077.867
Number of tweets analysed: 275.768 (9%)
Network information:
75.410 nodes
- 44.712 users
- 30.698 hashtag
256.615 unique connection
3,4 avg. node connections
@matteorenzi:
626 hashtag/user mentioned
180.162 mention received
Top mentioned user:
@matteorenzi
@pdnetwork
@beppe_grillo
Top Hashtag:
#renzi
#pd
#lavoltabuona
Local
Global
Self-
referential
Non Self-
referential
Political
sphere
Media
sphere
Mainstream News
National politics
International politics
User or Hashtag
Mention
Legend:
Most mentioned
Less mentioned
Network showed above represents 0,2% of total network from which are excluded nodes with less than 600 edges

36. #terrorismo
#isis
#giubileo
#sicurezza
#criminalità
#poliziadistato
#idoneipoliziadistato
@angealfa
@palazzo_chigi
@viminale
@senatoripd
@matteorichetti
#cairo
#egyptian
#israel
#libia
#eu
@paologentiloni
@robertapinotti
@ministerodifesa
@alsisiofficial
@onuitalia
@cnbc
#giubileo2015
#expo2015
#polizia
#assembleapd
@matteorenzi
@pdnetwork
@lauraboldrini
@marinasereni
@montecitorio
@renatobrunetta
@r_formigoni
@ilgiornale
@fattoquotidiano
@la_stampa
@ilmattinale
#tunisie
#tunisia
@fhollande
@elysee
@federicamog
@martinshulz
@rainews
@foresightnewsuk
@foresightnewsus
NATIONAL SECURITY
TERROR ATTACKS
ITALIAN
POLITICS & PRESS@matteorenzi
@pdnetwork
#terrorismo
#isis
#sicurezza
#giubileo
@angealfa
@fhollande
@paologentiloni
MATTEO RENZI - TWITTER NETWORK ON TERRORISM
36
Source: Twitter
Language: Italian, English, German, Spanish, French
Keyword: Leader’s official profile &
Terrorismo, Terrorism, Terrorisme, Terrorismus
Period: January - December 2015
Number of tweets: 1.412
Top mentioned user:
@matteorenzi
@angelafa
@pdnetwork
Top Hashtag:
#terrorismo
#sicurezza
#giubileo
Network showed above represents 40% of total network, selecting the 4 biggest clusters.
Legend:
Most mentioned
Less mentioned
FOREIGN POLITICS
User or Hashtag
Mention
Cluster

37. 37
ONLINE REPUTATION MONITORING
(ITALIAN & ENGLISH LANGUAGE)

38. METHODOLOGY - ONLINE REPUTATION MONITORING (ORM)
38
Quantitative analysis: Trend & Channel distribution
Period: January - December 2015
Source: Online news, Social Networks, Blog, Forum
Keywords: Every leaders’ Name and Surname (e.g. Matteo Renzi)
Qualitative analysis: Tag Cloud, Topics distribution & Sentiment analysis
Period: January - December 2015
Source: Twitter
Keywords: Every leaders’ Name and Surname (e.g. Matteo Renzi)
Minimum follower number: 2.000
Sample Methodology:
Twitter contents has been divided into 2 different clusters:
Tweets published by users with a follower base within 2.000 and 500.000.
Tweets published by users with over 500.000 followers.
The difference between the two clusters match the relevance of users on the twitter network, in particular, the 2nd cluster
represents mainstream news and notorious persons handles.
A total of 10.000 tweets have been analysed by extracting a random sample with the following numeric characteristics:
3.000 contents for Renzi and Cameron (2.000 from the 1st cluster and 1.000 from the 2nd cluster)
1.000 contents for Hollande, Merkel, Rajoy and Tsipras (700 from the 1st cluster 300 from the 2nd cluster).

39. MATTEO RENZI - NUMBER OF RESULTS & TREND
39
200.000
300.000
400.000
500.000
January Febrary March April May June July August September October November December
4.486.809Total contents
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
January & May 2015
Italicum
Monthly Results
Highest month
Period
Perimeter: Online news, Social Networks, Blog, Forum content containing leaders’ name in one of this languages: EN, IT. Media Owned and Retweets excluded. Period Jan-Dec 2015

40. MATTEO RENZI - SOURCES DISTRIBUTION & TAG CLOUD
40
Social
86%
News
5%
Blog
7%
You Tube
2%
SOURCES TAG CLOUD
Perimeter: Online news, Social Networks, Blog, Forum content containing leaders’ name in one of this languages: EN, IT. Media Owned and Retweets excluded. Period Jan-Dec 2015

41. MATTEO RENZI - TOPICS & SENTIMENT
41
HOT TOPICS SENTIMENT
Italy growth
Jobs Act (New permanent contracts)2%
73%
25%
Reforms
Regional Elections
Refugees
Expo 2015
Generic comments on the leadership
Jobs Act
School
Marino resignation
Current news
Generic Criticism/Approval
Reforms
Economy & Taxes
Other (25%)
25%
16%
15%
11%
Elections & Consensus rate8%
• Coalition sphere
• Foreign politics
• Immigration/refugees
• Official meetings
Perimeter: Sentiment and topics are on Twitter results containing leaders’ name in one of this languages: EN, IT. Media Owned and Retweets excluded. Period Jan-Dec 2015

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